An interactive working session is an effective way to train, learn, memorize, rehearse, and/or prepare for testing of verbal material. Such sessions and the attendant process are generally termed role playing. Although the use of a human as an instructor or trainer on a one to one basis in role playing sessions may be effective, such arrangements are neither efficient nor cost effective. Training systems which employ audio recorders to conduct role playing sessions have been devised in an effort to improve efficiency of instructor time and to reduce cost of role playing sessions.
Prior art tape training systems individually provide many of the basic functions provided by applicant's invention; however, they generally do not provide for generation of master tapes and the conduct of training sessions on the same machine.
Furthermore, prior art systems either require manual operations to intersperse responses with training material; or they provide for fixed response periods which are artificially long or which correspond to the length of the individual training statements. An example of a system of the former type is found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,662,121 which as issued on May 9, 1972. This patent describes a method to switch from one role to the other during training. However, switching back to the original role to continue on the training session requires manual intervention. This significantly distracts the trainee's attention from the training material. An example of a system of the latter type is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,172,329 which was issued on Oct. 30, 1979. The arrangements found in this patent may be satisfactory for training sessions in which the trainee merely mimics the words of the trainer e.g., in sessions for the learning of languages.
Neither system has considered the essential ingredient of an interactive training session, that is, the timing element. Often the reaction time of the trainee need be as short as possible and where the length of the trainee's response is unrelated to the length of the trainer's "cue", i.e., the trainer's questions or challenging statements, the trainee's response may be shorter or much longer than the cue. Accordingly, the provision of an equal amount of time for response is not proper in most applications; and the provision of uniform length long periods for response tends to waste training time and to create an unnatural tempo in the exchange of cues and the responses of the trainee.
The response times of interest to this invention are the "react time" i.e., the permissible lengths of times between the end of a "cue" and the beginning of the trainee's corresponding response; and the "pause time" i.e., the permissible length of pauses in the trainee's response once a response has been started.
Without provisions for selectively defining these times of interest, it is not possible to adapt the training session material to different levels of trainee proficiency.
Additionally, prior art interactive training systems provide no security against the use of training tapes of one training organization by a competing organization.